From time to time downloaded, compressed files come in RAR format. At one time, that was because WinRAR offered a better compression ratio. That is, files compressed with WinRAR were smaller. That meant that you could store more of them on your relatively expensive hard drive or post more of them for downloading from a limited space allocation on a server.

In addition, when access to the Internet was mainly via dial-up, that also meant that downloading cost less.

Today, hard drives are both bigger and cheaper, so many people never compress anything. Compression ratios across multiple file types have equalized among the vendors of file compression software.

Even so, WinRAR remains popular among users that compress a lot of files because it runs faster. Most of us get some files from someone else. The more files that your “someone” compresses, the more likely that you’ll encounter some files in .rar format.

Bridging the gap between forking over a fee for WinRAR and doing without the archive, the free RAR to ZIP converter conveniently changes .rar files to the more widely used .zip format. Currently, WinZIP remains the most popular file compression software for users of the Windows operating system, through Windows 10.